This invention relates to the preparation of hollow ceramic fibers predominantly composed of silicon carbide and silicon nitride.
Ceramics materials are now of great interest because of heat resistance, abrasion resistance, high-temperature strength and other useful properties. However, it is very difficult to machine ceramics because they are hard and brittle. For this reason, ceramic articles are generally prepared by a powder sintering method comprising molding powder ceramic material into a desired shape as by compaction and sintering the molded material. Also useful is a precursor method comprising melting an organic polymer as a ceramic precursor or dissolving the polymer in a solvent and shaping the melt or solution into a desired shape. The shaped polymer is then sintered to convert the material into inorganic. The precursor method has the advantage that there can be prepared ceramic articles of complex shapes which would otherwise be almost impossible to form by the powder sintering method. Articles of special shape such as fibers can be prepared by the precursor method.
Among materials generally known as ceramics, SiC and Si.sub.3 N.sub.4 are particularly of great importance because of their high-temperature properties. More particularly, SiC has good heat resistance and high-temperature strength and Si.sub.3 N.sub.4 is excellent in thermal shock resistance and fracture toughness. The inventors proposed a process for manufacturing organic silazane polymers for use in the manufacture of SiC--Si.sub.3 N.sub.4 ceramic materials by the precursor method and a process for manufacturing ceramics from the polymers as disclosed in Takamizawa et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,771,118, U.S. Pat. No. 4,869,854 or West German Offenlegungsschrift DE 3736914 A1, and Japanese Patent Application No. 313264/1987.
The ceramic fibers prepared from ceramic precursors by utilizing the precursor method now draw attention as reinforcements for fiber reinforced composite materials. To take advantage of their light weight, heat resistance and high strength, such ceramic fibers are combined with plastics, metals and ceramics to form composite materials. Particularly, hollow ceramic fibers having an empty space in the interior are more advantageous as reinforcements for composite materials because of lighter weight than other ceramic fibers, and also useful as light weight aggregates for heavy materials such as super hard materials, heat insulators, filtering materials and the like.
In the prior art there are known two methods for preparing such hollow ceramic fibers. A first method is by spinning a resin having inorganic powder evenly dispersed therein into a hollow fiber, and removing the resin from the hollow fiber as disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,104,445, 4,175,153, and 4,222,977. A second method involves impregnating carbon fibers with a metal salt, drying and sintering the fibers into a ceramic state, followed by oxidation to remove the core carbon fiber as disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Kokai No. 245315/1986. However, the first method cannot form thin fibers because the mixture of resin and inorganic powder dispersed therein is spun into hollow shape. The second method increases cost because carbon fibers are used as the core. These prior art methods are less practical.